Each is further along than the issue listed below it, but in all three cases, the train has left the station, never to return. ...

The third item listed above, acceptance of human-caused climate change, has also crossed a line toward inevitability, but only recently. Yes, the polls are mixed, but if you talk to people, actual people of all stripes and beliefs, it's clear they're starting to "get it." They don't yet know what to do, but they're coming to acceptance in greater and greater numbers. With each new super-storm and the inevitability of the next, with each new challenge to water resources, each new dramatic shot of disappearing glaciers and ice sheets, I'm certain there will never be more doubters than there are today. The doubter population, loud and well-financed though it be, is a doomed species. Climate is making its case.

All the noise — the literal noise, the manufactured interference and confusion — is, and will continue to be, What do we do? That battle, what to do, will be huge, but it's not the same battle as acceptance.

Elizabeth Kolbert pointed out in the New Yorker recently that (as Robin Darling Young puts it) "while few in our country—of any political persuasion—are ready to accept the discipline required to slow climate change, most Americans do believe that the atmosphere is warming rapidly, and that we are already observing the consequences of this warming."

I still agree with that assessment and offer two related pieces of evidence. The first piece is the coming papal encyclical on climate change, "Laudato si’, on the care of our common home". The encyclical text is embargoed for a time (however, see below), but its announcement has already created a stir, partly because of the genre. An encyclical is an "authoritative form of magisterial communication" in the words of Fordham professor of Theology Christiana Z. Peppard. Encyclicals are automatically important, if not always agreed with.

So What Will the Pope's Encyclical Say?

Embargonotwithstanding, here's a preview of the encyclical, via Chris Mooney at the Washington Post (my emphasis):

A draft of a major environmental document by Pope Francis says “the bulk of global warming” is caused by human activity — a perspective aligned with most climate scientists but still highly controversial to some Americans.

In the draft, portions of which were translated by The Washington Post, the pope takes climate change deniers to task and calls on “humanity” to take steps — including changing manufacturing and consumption trends — to turn back the clock on global warming. He backs the science behind climate change, citing “a very considerable consensus that points out we are now facing a worrisome warming of the climate.”

Although he states that there may be some natural reasons for global warming, he blasts those who claim it is unrelated to human activity, saying “plenty of scientific studies point out that the last decades of global warming have been mostly caused by the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide and others) especially generated by human action.”

Yes, the world is more than ready. The world is eager. My second piece of evidence relates to how the encyclical is being seen by the welcoming (non-denying) part of the world. Consider this (h/t Adam Siegel):

The welcoming part of the world is, I think, the larger part by far, and the reaction to this encyclical will demonstrate that. The denier and delayer side will offer much fire from a very small number of flame-throwers.

Most of the rest of the world, however, will cheer his leadership. I'll have more to say about the place and benefit of actual leadership in fighting climate change. Bottom line: It's huge and the people are hungry for it. Stay tuned.

Apparently, this not being a formal declaration at the level of an encyclical, there was no concurrent announcement that the Catholic church would immediately divest itself of its immense wealth and distribute it to the poor (reserving sufficient funds to reimburse world wide governments for prosecution and incarceration of priest pedophiles and their enablers.)

--------I'll concede that the presumed content of the encyclical is much better than if it had said the opposite. But the billions who must act to alleviate the situation are sensitive to, and many very tired, of talk without action from world leaders.